The Thieves' Market

Seven or eight months ago the first mention of the market. An intriguing painter encountered in an Art supply shop was said to haunt the place. The painter had been working abstracts the last few years, two or three of which had been sat on boxes in the shop. In their thick, vibrant oil ribbons that spun and curled across the canvas, the paintings were quite mesmerizing, the kind of production that recalled Pollock, the sixties and the drug culture.

         In the flesh the man himself was anything but the expected, a kind of artisan-type with dirty nails, flickering eyes and not much English. The owner of the shop was an artist himself, a traditional portraitist, who modestly had his own work up on a high cupboard. The other's work he sold sometimes from the shop, thereby re-cooping debts in materials. For obvious reasons this arrangement with this particular painter the owner kept a little private. Only the once was the abstract painter encountered at the shop. At the market the man had been more or less forgotten. It would be a miracle picking him out in such a place. Chinese eyes might have difficulty.
         Finally the market was stumbled upon one blessedly cool afternoon whilst seeking a way through to Little India. Seven or eight months prior the first attempt had been made with a local guide for company. The girl was wrong for such a venture; secondhand goods interested her not at all. Fashion fakes were acceptable, but soiled secondhand was another matter. Graciously she did her duty. It was a piece of luck in the end. 
         As soon as the first men were sighted down on their haunches behind their various wares there was no guessing required. The tower that had been given as a reference point months before stood close-by. Back then one or two people had been asked for the secondhand or flea market—its more common name hadn't been known at the time. It was said to be no more; construction works had taken over the site. Perfectly credible in Singapore. There was a great deal of construction in that quarter as in many others. In fact the Thieves' Market stood in the midst of a large underground train station construction site. There was certainly no signage. The discoloured streamers at entry had not been noticed on the first visit.
         A hundred and fifty metres off one of the main thoroughfares in the city, there it was beside a canal on two or three narrow lengths of old, cracked concrete.

         Most of the items sat on spread squares of cloth. In many cases goods sat in heaps that were added to from large bags behind like a pinch of salt into a stew. Often the sellers made do without chairs or stools. One woman certainly into her seventies, possibly eighties, deeply leathered and dark, but almost certainly Chinese, sat without any umbrella or hat on a pair of what must have been her own thongs, one on top of the other for cushioning.

         On the first visit almost immediately a slight dizziness took hold. One didn't know where to look. The articles for sale on the one hand — secondhand shoes and clothes, watches and jewelry, electronic components, what appeared to be old key-ring amulets or charms of some kind, old coins with squares cut from their centres such as one knows from museum exhibits and archaeological finds; and on the other side the sellers. There was a great disjunction between those buying and selling. The former were not far removed in class, though definitely distinct, if not elevated. This group likely had their roots in the very same hard-scrabble; since they had climbed a peg or two. Their colour was more pale. Old, hard to change habits and continuance within families might have been strong determinants. 
         The visual gamut was overwhelming. Most of the sellers were into their sixties and many well beyond. Together with the figures and faces there were the gestures, the broken-off words, the postures and far-off casts of countenance that reminded of birds on tree branches.

         Understandably, the portraitist at the Art shop painted those who could afford to pay. Quite likely the abstractionist had the over-powering scenes of the Thieves' Market within the phantasmagoria of his spiraling lines and colours. How else to picture such a scene?
         On the first visit one old man sat on his haunches before his goods three quarters covered by an umbrella he held in one hand. Did he hold up his shade all afternoon? Perhaps the feet of a prospective customer might be seen from under the rim. One was reminded of bashful, simple people a couple of generations past hiding themselves from intimidating tall-walkers. Most of the Chinese had darkened so deeply it was difficult to tell them apart from the Malays. The inter-mingling of the races was more evident than elsewhere in Singapore. One or two Arabs sat in their robes. Patience and hardship, endurance and abiding. Hope was not essential here; even a good sale day could make little difference.
         Shade was constructed in all manner of ways. Standard umbrellas and some old outdoor kind were common. Cords for plastic sheeting anchored one side by clumps of concrete or broken brickwork, expertly tied off. Surely in the heat of mid-year better provision was made. But then the dark, leathered people suggested otherwise.

         On the second or third visit one old woman—her age made one wince—sat behind two small umbrellas. One might possibly have been free-standing; but then both were the common size.

         A man in his thirties had retained a couple of thin plywood squares for cushioning, one under his bottom and the other against the green plastic cyclone fence which had some denting from earlier occupants. Wads of newspaper protruded from the small of his back. A large fellow probably found more comfort that way than on a stool.
         Mostly the sellers sat quietly, hardly stirring. Their eyes rarely fell on those passing, not even always on those stopped before them. The necessity of this was understandable. Some chat was likely possible with regulars. The abstract painter no doubt had friends here. After many years of visiting he still found the place inexhaustible.

         Sometimes the sellers adjusted the arrangement of their wares. There might have been a sale, or some more tempting presentation sought. Sometimes the re-arrangement of small pieces had the look of a jig-saw puzzle play, a children's game or magician's art; a kind of sleight of hand. An item was tried on one row, then below and across tried. Shuffle again, switching rapidly, another row and order. On every visit spray cans came out for blackening vinyl, rubber or dubious leather. Something for licking up shoes, even the soles. The man wielding the shine-stick had never in his life worn a pair of shoes, not at his son's wedding or father's funeral.
         An exceedingly thin Chinese woman under an exceedingly wide brimmed hat gave the common name for the market. Though she was not particularly old, perhaps not yet seventy despite the indicators, the level of English was unexpected. That the figure spoke at all and wanted to communicate was remarkable.

         At the main junction of the paths she had her regular stall, two fold-out tables which were transported daily from some short distance presumably. On two or three sides of the market stood tall, older housing towers. The sellers who lived nearby had a distinct advantage. The woman's colour and creasing had one switching one's eyes as if from physical grotesquerie.

         The beach umbrella beside her had not been used from earliest days. A tub which had been filled with concrete provided anchoring for the post. The assembly stood on a make-shift trolley which she rolled to track the sun. Beside her stood her sister, a couple of years older or younger—wisps of white hair suggested the former—afflicted in precisely the same way; the same gruesome thinness too. This other smiled broadly. In childhood in another locale the pair would cut terrifying figures, more terrifying still in speech. Bird-like pinched features and a swiveling head produced short high-pitched squawks.
         — They call it the Thieves' Market, the first woman confessed the worst straight-out.
         An attempt at softening was immediately rebuffed. It was a thieves' market alright; no two ways about it. That was the woman's place in the world. Her manner spoke as much as her words: an old trapped bird whose wings had been clipped.

         It was still not clear what this woman sold at her prime, corner position. There might have been a little collapsible telescope on her table. Somewhere at the Thieves' there was such a telescope. Faded camouflage-green binoculars from the time of the Japanese invasion were tested one afternoon by a wag who seemed to be calling a horse race up on the top of one of the housing towers. It had all the hallmarks, until the fellow gave the game away with the curvy, rollicking shapes he started.
         The area around the market was ear-marked for development. A large produce market that sold from boxes and bags closer to the main road would shortly also need to make way. No great fear. The resourceful thieves would doubtless find a way against all the opposing forces.
         A brief scene from the third or fourth visit dramatized the nature of the commerce. Three minutes duration. Utterly impossible to have captured on film; the entirety simply intractable.

         Here was impromptu drama from the street and back alley. In this case it may have been the glassware before the old Malay that drew attention. Usually walking along the aisles one looked for the figure of the seller first of all, and only then, if time allowed, did the observation pass to the goods. Here there was time to take in both figures, seller and prospective buyer, before the action suddenly hurtled onward without warning.
         Perfume and cologne one guessed, in various shapes and sizes. The seeing eye was sending the images for decoding, while the dark Malay man hovered on his chair. 
         The bottles stood tall, slender and shapely. Black plastic screw tops, clip-tops and flip. As at a jeweler’s, a black cloth was setting off the glassware. 
         A dozen and half bottles, positioned close like chess pieces. The colour of the liquid, as well as the containers, gave the indication of content. 
         A roughly torn piece of cardboard confirmed:
                  PERFUME 
                  $1 BOTTLE
         Still, with a mat sellah stopped before him, it was worth the Malay trying for better.
         — Two dollar bottle. 
         The man conformed to average: at least seventy, exceptionally thin, emaciated in fact. There was very little excess baggage on any of the older sellers, even in the age of cheap rice. Creased and deeply tanned. Shorts, tee and flip-flops.
         The words were intelligible enough, but the impression was more an old lion swinging its head to growl.
         It was only a partial attention that was given to the newcomer. The chief attention of the Malay was directed at the man crouched before the bottles. In both cases, without direct gaze in either direction. 
         The Malay man didn't seem to be temporarily minding the goods for the Missus. 
         A small stool was all but invisible. It elevated the man somewhat. An old sailor or wharfie; not a rice-paddy man. The village, back-breaking as it may have been, did not produce the kind of snarl that was coming.
         The other was an unpromising customer, young Indian male kneeling before the magic carpet with a kind of genie bottle in hand.

         On his stool the seller sat as if withdrawn from his surroundings; restrained and confined. Most of the sellers had settled far better to their circumstances. The sharp, angular lines this Malay made with his arms, switching eyes and swiveling chin ought to have given sufficient signal of the inner tension. Before him the glinting glassware. Impossible to capture all the elements in the visual field. 
         The young Indian unscrewed the cap of his bottle and gave a little spray onto the back of his hand. As one did in Parfumeries the world over.
         The Malay was almost as dark as the man from the Sub-continent. Thrice his age, thinner and more taut, more full of beans.
         This young Fuck Smart-arse Filthy Stinking Dog.... The old man was building up a head of steam without moving a muscle practically.
         — Take — You — Three: Thirty cents!
         The visuals were far more powerful than the scrambled, bitten-off words.
         The young man might have been known to vendor, an old antagonist who had tried it on before. 
         It would have been entirely understandable if the Indian had not comprehended a word. The sudden shock of the outburst alone was overwhelming.
         A quick-fire repetition came from the other side on the matter of the thirty cents. This time with a thrusting of the right forearm. Pulled back and thrust again.

         On the second lunge a tight fist made. In the action the veins along the inside of the forearm of the Malay twisted and bulged as if a puppet's wire had been pulled.

         Certainly the man's chain had been pulled. If the Malay had been scowling from the beginning it was not apparent. The sudden ferocity was completely unexpected. 
         Jaw and mouth clamped hard. Seventy or seventy five, but certainly nobody's fool.
         After an initial and understandable pause, the Indian recovered himself with a short laugh. Extraordinary.

         Showing his white teeth, the young man called the older not merely uncle, but "my uncle".

         Casting behind him, smiling bright-eyed, the Indian appealed for understanding. What had he done that was amiss?
         In such a short space of time much had transpired.
         The Indian lad—if he was indeed Indian—had chosen the deep, amber colour in one of the tallest, thinnest bottles. Other colours showed faint plum, kerosene, clear and urine tones, in no particular order or arrangement.

         None of the bottles held more than two or three fingers at the most (to use an old back-alley measure that the Malay seller would almost certainly have known). An inch or inch and a half.     

         More than three quarters of every fancy bottle was empty. The more fancy the bottle the more use it seemed. The glassware itself of course, the fine delicacy and curvature had to be worth something. 
         Diluted? How was one supposed to tell other than by testing? 
         The small quantity involved here made for difficulty. Granted one might have taken a whiff without making off with the product.

         Could the antagonists both have been playing equally unfair, each on his own side?
         One and one half minutes filled with lightning, thunder and the final deluge that swept all before it.